Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "DW News"
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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Usually in debates like in these in the comments sections, it doesn't take long for the emotional argumentation and logical fallacies to set in.
For example, the "...but if we hadn't bombed city centers, how much stronger would Germany have been?"
Easy answer? Not much.
Historians who have studied air warfare in WW2 have already concluded this long ago.
For example Munsen, Kenneth/German Aircraft of WW2 ISBN 623.74'6'0943 p. 13
"It has been estimated that Allied raids between mid-1943 and early-1945 cost the Luftwaffe some 18,000 aircraft in lost production. On the other hand, if these aircraft had been received, shortages of aircrew, fuel, and munitions would have severely limited their effective use."
[End of quote]
It was not as much the bombing which limited German industry, but the lack of resources, especially oil.
Every raid, and every sortie flown in excess of what was really necessary against a few key industries (again, esp. oil targets), was a waste of Allied airmen and a waste of own resources.
Every bomber downed with the intent to kill "Oma Schickelgruber" who was ostensibly "in the way of valid targets", an exposed lie, was a needless waste of own lives.
Every Allied soldier sent to "save Stalin", was equally wasted.
The price for such folly would be paid after the war.
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OK.
So if you're overweight, and have a heart attack, pay your own hospital bills..
If you're driving drunk, and have an accident, pay your own hospital bills..
If you have a dangerous hobby, and end up in trouble, pay your own hospital bills..
So if you play too much video games and collapse of exhaustion, pay your own hospital bills.
If you swim in rough seas, and need to be saved, pay your own hospital bills.
If you cycle in traffic and get hit by a car, pay your own hospital bills.
If you overdose on opiods, pay your own hospital bills.
Dangerous slippery slope there.
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Rules maybe, but not logic...
British leaders were fools, and ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
[Search for: britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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"The bombing of Plzeň in what was then Czechoslovakia. The official history stated that the Skoda works in Pilsen "received 500 well-placed tons", and that "because of a warning sent out ahead of time the workers were able to escape, except for five persons. "The Americans received a rapturous welcome when they liberated the city. Zinn wrote: I recalled flying on that mission, too, as deputy lead bombardier, and that we did not aim specifically at the 'Skoda works' (which I would have noted, because it was the one target in Czechoslovakia I had read about) but dropped our bombs, without much precision, on the city of Pilsen. Two Czech citizens who lived in Pilsen at the time told me, recently, that several hundred people were killed in that raid (that is, Czechs)—not five."
Copied from the Film Archives Channel (YouTube)
After World War II, Zinn attended New York University on the GI Bill, graduating with a B.A. in 1951. At Columbia University, he earned an M.A. (1952) and a Ph.D. in history with a minor in political science (1958).
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." Henry Kissinger
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Bombing German cities was counterproductive in 2 main ways.
1) German "factories" was not what limited German production, but rather the lack of raw materials.
2) after WW2, the new "alpha" Washington DC actually needed both Germany and Japan (the losers) as much as they did GB, France and their empires (the winners). So that by opening up the markets in the US sphere of interest, Germany and Japan quickly recovered, and with a completely modernized economy, quickly overtook GB. There was no alternative, because if not, both would have fallen to communism.
GB, and Empire was seen as a rival, and was "cut down to size".
London no longer had the "leverage" to stand up to Washington DC, and were overpowered. Note, overpowering does not necessarily mean war.
Economic warfare is an old established method.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
So after WW2 while the British population and economy were being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, were having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, were being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, were still on war rations till way into the 1950s, and lost the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...
So the London lords woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best friends forever" had stolen all their markets.
And that's how "leverage" works.
Washington DC: "I've taken over almost all your markets now. What are you going to do about it?"
Sad reality?
There was nothing London could do about it.
Washing DC had more leverage to impose, and they took over from their former colonial masters.
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If any individual starts off by saying that "Hamas/Palestinians have no rights to..." then what such individuals are actually saying is that "Nelson Mandela/non-white majority (ANC/1960s thru 1980s/Cold War) had no rights to...", and then going a bit further back, saying that "Irgun, Lehi, the Stern Gang, or the Haganah had no rights to create Israel using terrorism in the first place...", per implication (and that Israel "had no rights to choose terrorist like Ben Gurion as leaders and founding fathers"). Further back as standpoint, that the "Revolutionary USA had no "rights" to stand up to imperialism, and choose a bunch of terrorists who killed hundreds of thousands, as founding fathers (British perspective of things about the local "terrorists/revolutionaries" going against their British laws, and British sense of justice, trying to take something away from them). Whose "side" are you on, in each of these historical cases? Now, as one wise man once said :-) just "search your feelings" and you will know that your "support" depends on your own inner "feelings" or your emotions, which is exactly how IMPERIALISM works.
The circle is, again, complete.
If your standpoint is simply a dogmatic "oppose terrorists/freedom fighters" today, then you would never have supported the founding of Israel, called out by a bunch of revolutionaries in 1948, nor would you have supported the independence of the USA called out by a bunch of revolutionaries in 1776, had you lived in that epoch.
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@Sk_max-k3m To add to the above:
The decision to "area bomb" entire cities was not only immoral, but also counterproductive.
The "price tag" for London came after the war...
Logically, also fatally flawed:
Was your grandfather or or father killed by Wittmann in his Tiger tank, on that day in Normandie in 1944?
Was he killed or wounded in the Hochwald Gap, or anywhere else in Northern Europe?
Was he shot down by a Messerschmidt, or by one of the famous 88-mm guns?
If not, how about cut to ribbons by an MG-42 machine gun?
Was he shot or badly wounded by the standard German infantry rifle at the time, the Kar-98k?
At the time of the Dresden attack, the Mauser Works in Oberndorf in in the south of Germany, barely an hours flying time from the front lines at the time, was still fully functional.
It was one of the major German small arms manufactures, including the the feared MG-42, and the old-fashioned but reliable Kar-98k.
Instead of frying 25,000 or 30,000 women and kids in Dresden in February 1945, maybe the RAF should have targeted the Mauser Works.
At this point in the war, the complete destruction or serious damage to the factory would have meant thousands of machine guns and rifles would have been either directly destroyed, or indirectly lost to production. Thousands of German soldiers, still viciously defending Germany, would have been left without adequate means to do so.
At this late stage of the war, with the front lines only a few hundred miles away, there would have hardly been an incentive for the Germans to try and repair the plant, especially not if the factory had been hit successively in a fully coordinated USAAF (daylight) and RAF (nighttime) attack.
Mauser was one of the world's most famous arms manufactures of the world, yet strangley anough, it was simply forgotten.
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@kekistanimememan170 Sorry Mr Mememan, but after WW2 the British Empire imploded rather rapidly, with "a little help from a friend".
Because during WW2, British leaders had bombed the British Empire into ruin.
Apparently "flattening Germany" was a too expensive burden for a failing empire to shoulder...
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under..."third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
Such a "special relationship" :-)
US historians are far more candid about how "Empire" got screwed over.
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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At Coventry the LW used X- and Y-precision bombing aiming devices, and aimed for specific industrial zones.
From wiki:
" The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers, from Luftflotte 3 and from the pathfinders of Kampfgruppe 100. The attack, code-named Operation Mondscheinsonate of the city, including monuments and residential areas, would be considerable. The initial wave of 13 specially modified Heinkel He 111 aircraft of Kampfgruppe 100, which were equipped with X-Gerät navigational devices, accurately dropped marker flares at 19:20.[a]The British and the Germans were fighting the Battle of the Beams and on this night the British failed to disrupt the X-Gerät signals."
Later on the British side, these "beams" were bent, or interfered with, meaning that accuracy was greatly inhibited.
At Coventry, there was no attempt at "area bombing" civilians.
Again, these were "collateral damage".
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Geopolitics links what they are discussing here, to the big picture.
There is a fracture zone between the big global players (USA/EU, Russia, China) running from the North Pole, through the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine, via the Caucasus, Iran, and towards Israel. Another fracture zone is the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa (incl. Israel), from there through India, SE Asia (incl. Vietnam), through Taiwan, the Koreas, Japan, Taiwan, back up to the North Pole.
Expect Washington DC, either in collaboration with a NATO state, or tacidly nodded off by the EU, to instigate crises and wars EVERYWHERE on these "fracture zones," because it is the only way they can hang on the the good ol' days a bit longer: their role of the hegemon of the world, and that of the American Century.
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@Chuanese I'm afraid it is far more complicated that simply looking at economic ties, or trade.
Because if one studies history, one notices how there are similar geopolitical implications when trying to "cordon off" rivals in a military or "alliances" manner...
In the late-19th Century, France fought back against the German attempts to isolate it politically, by cordoning off Germany and the Central Powers with a ring of alliance partners.
France, in the west, a hostile Russia in the east.
GB's RN in the position to cut off the north, in case of war, joined later. That only left a small corridor of access either through Serbia, or Austria-Hungary's ports in the Adriatic (threatened by British hegemony over Greece).
Before WW1, things like cultural exchanges, or trade carried on pretty normally. Most people alive at the time "felt" nothing extraordinary in their daily life.
Today, we see a similar strategy concerning China.
Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines controlling sea access to the east. Trump playing it nice with Putin/Russia [yup, "collusion" in some form or other is real. Geopolitics almost dictates it to be true], would cut off the north-west/north-east. A more hostile India, will cover the south-west sector...almost there.
That only leaves a narrow corridor of access to the south, in the South China Sea. The Sprattly Islands...
History might not always be 100% the same, but it certainly rhymes.
Encircling a rival with a ring of alliance partners is the typical strategy of those who wish to rule the world.
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So British leaders bombed the British Empire into ruin.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
Sorreeee. That's what happens when you make the wrong "fwiends".
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
Nice exchange.
The current generation of kiddies can chant "Bomber Harris do it again" for all eternity.
It only cost the Brits their Empire...
Seems like a fair deal.
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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Spot on.
There was no testing.
For weeks the virus was allowed to spread, and the complacency at this point was blatant.
It was even called out at the time so nobody can say the Trump admin and other countries didn't screw up.
Trump, for example, just now said that he was "cheerleading", thereby practically admitting that he was trying to gloss over the danger the USA was in at the time he was downplaying it, by distracting the American people with dumb bs...
Look at South Korea.
They implemented a plan right from the start...test, isolate, test again, isolate, test again and again, isolate, repeat, repeat, repeat...
Now that's what I call a plan.
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@chippewaguy4193 Not even the "hindsight" excuse is valid.
In reality it was a lack of foresight, and sheer stupidity.
Because interestingly at the same time as German industrialisation after their 1871 unification, there was another "power" concurrently rising on the other side of the Atlantic.
Concerning "the biggest picture of all", aka "geopolitics", they too, were in the advantageous position of a having geographical advantage. Only this time, the rise of technology (steam trains, railways, steam ships, turbines, etc.) at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th Century, meant that the geographical advantages the American Century enjoyed, would eventually surpass the geographical advantage of the rather narrow English Channel.
Similarly to London concerning the continent...
[Search for: Splendid_isolation]
...Washington DC could similarly innocently claim to be "just isolating" themselves, while at the same time gaining from the mistakes of other less "isolatable" European powers...
The world was M-A-I-N after all, so why not? :-)
After WW1 and especially WW2, Washington DC was now in the same situation as GB was pre-WW1. The Atlantic as a "barrier" between the Americas and Europe, had supplanted (in importance) the English Channel as the barrier between GB and the continent.
They had the political "leverage" to impose a favorable geopolitical situation for themselves.
After 100 years of playing "balancing games" with the continent, the British Empire became a victim of their own "game".
That isn't "hindsight".
More like sheer ignorance, stupidity, arrogance of power, misuse of a geographical advantage, short-sightedness...
And if you give me a few more minutes, I can come up with a few more terms...
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@not today Just like prior to WW1 there are 2 major geopolitical historical events unfolding.
One is the US wish to attack and carry out a regime change in Iran, which Moscow opposes (google the New Silk Road or Belt Initiative, the "southern prong" of which goes through Iran, and the Persian Gulf)
The second is encircling China.
Yup.
The geopolitics of trying to "cordon off" rivals are strikingly similar. Before WW1, it was France/Russia trying to cordoning off Germany/Austria-Hungary (Central Powers) with a ring of alliance partners.
France, in the west, a hostile Russia in the east.
GB's RN in the position to cut off the north, in case of war, closed the gap to the north in 1907. That only left a small corridor of access either through Serbia, or Austria-Hungary's ports in the Adriatic (threatened by British hegemony over Greece).
Today, we see a similar strategy concerning China.
Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines controlling sea access to the east. Trump playing it nice with Putin/Russia [yup, "collusion" in some form or other is real. Geopolitics almost dictates it to be true], would cut off the north-west/north-east. A more hostile India, will cover the south-west sector...almost there.
That only leaves a narrow corridor of access to the south, in the South China Sea. The Sprattly Islands...
History might not always be 100% the same, but it certainly rhymes.
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@pouletbidule9831 "Legit" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics.
The real question that should be asked, and therefore the premise of any debate is: Was it wise at the time?
To which the simple answer is "no".
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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Not only Churchill, but an entire network of "old boys" stiff-upper-lipped Empire into ruin...
Because there's always a big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
[britannica & balance-of-power]
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world.
Note: nobody in Europe ever applied for this "honor".
It was simply imposed on the continental powers, decided behind closed doors by a few London lords without negotiations or accords with those so "divided"...
London made Germany, the strongest continental power, "the enemy", as a default setting.
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, still angered by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to play "balancing games" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if the eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...you loose your empire to the new kids in town...
From the unmistakable "Nr.1" in 1900, down to "merely on par" with Washington DC after WW1, down to "third fiddle" during the Cold War. All in less than a single lifetime...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself. The world was divided in "East" and "West".
And down went the British Empire too...
Sorry 'bout that.
Causality is a b*tch...
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It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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Actions have consequences...
However, British leaders were fools, and ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, angered by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
[Search for: britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostrategy, and lost their Empire...
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History might not always be 100% the same, but it certainly rhymes.
In the late-19th Century, France fought back against the German attempts to isolate it politically, by cordoning off Germany and the Central Powers with a ring of alliance partners.
France, in the west, a hostile Russia (as the "dissed girlfriend") in the east.
GB's RN in the position to cut off the north, in case of war. That only left a small corridor of access either through Serbia, or Austria-Hungary's ports in the Adriatic (threatened by British hegemony over Greece).
Today, we see a similar strategy concerning China.
Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines controlling sea access to the east. Trump playing it nice with Putin/Russia [yup, "collusion" in some form or other is real. Geopolitics almost dictates it to be true], would cut off the north-west/north-east. A more hostile India, will cover the south-west sector...almost there.
That only leaves a narrow corridor of access to the south, in the South China Sea. The Sprattly Islands...
Let's see if the effects are going to be the same...
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A "blow" that came back to them after WW2, in the form of "blowback"...
Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickegruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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Good job American Century too.
They had a gweat team...
And so Brits bombed themselves into financial ruin.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
Aww.
Too bad.
Can't all be winners :-D
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Aww.
So sad.
Too bad.
Lost their impure empire, and then some...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
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The instigators like best buddies Harris, Portal, Trenchard and Churchill went waaaay back. They had no problems terror bombing women and children in Iraq during the 1920s, in "ops" euphemistically called "air policing", and kept a secret from the general public back home.
It was justified by the elites in London as "a cheap alternative to land forces".
So what did the citizens of Iraq ever do to GB? Or neighbors? Or did they invade anyone to "deserve it" too?
From historynet:
"Air policing is a relatively simple strategy. Aircraft operating out of well-defended airfields are supported by fast-moving armored car squadrons. When an outlying village or isolated tribe refused to pay taxes or ignored the central government, airplanes would be dispatched to strafe and bomb the offending group. Trenchard explained he could achieve results more cheaply with his RAF squadrons..."
Such fun, terror bombing and strafing civilians, cowering in tents and simple villages made of mud and stone. Such a "great opportunity" (sic.) to test new weapons, like delay action bombs (time fuses), or fragmentation bomblets on innocent civilians...
Once a terror bombing fanboy, always a terror bombing fanboy.
Their pathetic empire's HQ back home in London, Bristol, Coventry, Hull, Birmingham, etc., etc. would one day "reap" as it "sowed", a hundred times over...
Well.
Who would've guessed the 2,000-year old biblical logic counts for all...
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"Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment.[1] The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking,[2] and accordingly, a critical thinker is one who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been schooled in its disciplines.[3] Richard W. Paul has suggested that the mind of a critical thinker engages both the intellectual abilities and personal traits necessary for critical thinking.[4] Critical thinking presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism[5][6] and sociocentrism." (Wiki)
"In that context (not a ref. to the above but a previous chapter in the book), how America "manages" Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 percent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about 60 percent of the world's GNP and about threefourths of the world's known energy resources. Eurasia is also the location of most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. After the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest spenders on military weaponry are located in Eurasia. All but one of the world's overt nuclear powers and all but one of the covert ones are located in Eurasia. The world's two most populous aspirants to regional hegemony and global influence are Eurasian. All of the potential political and/or economic challengers to American primacy are Eurasian. Cumulatively, Eurasia's power vastly overshadows America's. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one..." THE GRAND CHESSBOARD American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Critical question.
If that is the realisation, then what is the strategy to avoid that?
Ahem..."manages"...
Last time I checked, "thoughts and prayers" are neither a strategy, nor a management style.
What Brzezinski fails to elaborate on in his book, is that his "periphery" of states stretching from South East Asia, via the Indian subcontinent, through Africa and from there to South America, just like Great Britain and the U.S.A. was once the "periphery" of Europe...
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For hundreds of years the London/British Empire went around the world bomb(ard)ing and terrorizing nations, especially "little nations". Not a week goes by and some new attrocity is unearthed from dark archives: for example, search "The Bombardement of Alexandria in 1882" (then click on "images").
The photographs look a lot like Coventry, don't they?
Kagoshima, Canton, Sebastopol (Krim War), and and dozens of others. Such fun to have own leaders coining the term "Copenhagenization" to mock the children they burnt alive while cheering on the historical heroes committing such acts. Victims? Who cares about victims? Right?
From wiki: "Oh, that example of Copenhagen has worked wonders in the world!... I (would) like to see the name of that city become a verb... 'cities will be copenhagenized' is an excellent phrase." William Cobbet
Excellent indeed.
His wish would one day become true, long after he was dead and gone, but surely not according to his dreams...
So around the world they went, turning towns and cities and entire kingdoms into "mere verbs".
Such great fun, bomb(ard)ing everybody else, but not getting bomb(ard)ed oneself.
Terror bombing countless towns and villages as the weapons improved, but the practice remained: creating uncounted victims because nobody cared enough to even count. Later, in Mesopotamia, and Aden, the Sudan, and then euphemistically terming this "Air Policing". Makes you think that terror bombing people unable to defend themselves against superior technology, is really just your friendly neighborhood Bobby keeping the peace, lol...
When they invaded half the planet, their "heroes" wrote stories about how exciting it was to "dodge bullets". The locals defending their own? Such great fun, mowing down weaker nations who had only spears and old fashioned muskets, with cannons and machine guns. Pfffft. Who gives a...
Famines accompanied by racial slurs of "breeding like rabbits anyway", sticking women and kids into concentration camps, scorched earth policies, torture chambers, slave labor camps ("penal colonies" for cheap labor), and then burning evidence of crimes right through into the 1960s (google Operation Legacy).
No doubt getting a bit of their own medicine when their own cities burned down and V-2s rained down on their kids, and they finally knew what it felt like. Not so "exiting" dodging rockets, right? Not so nice "reaping" what had been "sown" for a few hundred years, eh?
Not so great having own cities and streets turned into mere verbs, right?
William Cabbot, and other British leaders' heartfelt desire to turn cities into mere verbs finally came true.
Londonization, Liverpoolization, Southamptonization, Hullization, Doverization...Coventrization.
Then, all of a sudden, everybody was soooooooo tired of all that "Empire"-stuff.
Brits are nice today, but back then they simply had to be taught a lesson they would never forget.
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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@johnnyelvis3173
The leaders of the British Empire seemed to have held the mistaken idea that closer relations with the USA would guarantee their Empire against "greedy continental rivals", but they were wrong.
Because, the type of rule or economy or political model chosen, plays little role in the outcome of whether one "rules the world" or not.
Geography plays a far bigger role.
So at the turn of century London "ruled the world" because geography isolated them from the continent and their island status gave them the upper hand at a time when war was still the common way to determine "top dog" or not. They could play out the ambitions of rulers on the continent against each other, always siding with the weaker waring state or empire, and thereby "engineer" solutions which they perceived would guarantee the survival of their Empire.
When development of weapons produced ever further reaching weapons of war, GB's island status did not offer the same measure of protection anymore...so they went down.
The weapons of 1900 couldn't harm the British Empire, but the weapons of 1945 could....
In that era around WW2, it was the USA which was (as the sole power) isolated from this "great game", and benefited as the result of its geographical isolation...
[Today, with nukes, that "logic" of using (or rather "misusing") conventional wars to become top dog does not apply anymore].
US leaders like Wilson (WW1) or Roosevelt (WW2) knew they just had to wait long enough for European leaders to dismantle what 500 years of empire building had achieved, and to pick up the pieces.
That movement of "going west" started with the consolidation of power (lol "freedom from slavery" for Joe the Plumber....right. Sure, sure....) with the Civil War, and ended when US President Eisenhower forced GB and France (together with Israel) to stand down in the Suez Crisis. For all practical reasons ending the period in history when London or Paris got to decide on the defense or the expansion of their spheres of influence...
If it wasn't yet quite clear who the alpha male was, and who the beta males...that was it.
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@eedragonr6293 The USA did not fight for freedom for Europe when it declared war in 1917.
That's a fairy tale for the uneducated.
The USA is the world's biggest "sphere of influence" grabber and used the wars between European countries to take over from the British Empire as the nr1 in the world (see above).
Washington DC has always followed the principle of "America first", even if not propagating this aloud, google "The American Century" or the newer PNAC for what US elites send soldiers to war for...
Donald Trump was simply a big oaf who blurted this out aloud, with "America 1st", while previous presidents kept it quiet...
If after WW2 London or Paris thought there'd be "another Versailles", with the British and French empires "drawing lines on the map" and "carving up power" to protect their own empires and own interests, they were to be disappointed...
The attempt by Churchill to use the USA to throw Stalin out of Eastern Europe, and remain "the balancer" of power, too transparent.
There would be no US support to start Operation Unthinkable, or the seamless start of WW3...
The "poor Poles have to be liberated"-argument, wasn't swinging...
After being dragged into another European (World) War, Washington decided to become the "balancer of powers" herself, and Europe was divided in "East" and "West"...
With the collapse of of London's Policy of Balance of Power in 1945, the key to "starting world wars" passed from London to Washington D.C.
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@mygl4490 The war on drugs is real, creating the type of conditions in which crooks like Maduro thrive...
"The war on drugs is a largely unsuccessful campaign, led by the U.S. federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim being the reduction of the illegal drug trade in the United States.[7][8][9][10]The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments and the UN have made illegal. The term was popularized by the media shortly after a press conference given on June 18, 1971, by President Richard Nixon—the day after publication of a special message from President Nixon to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control—during which he declared drug abuse "public enemy number one". That message to the Congress included text about devoting more federal resources to the "prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted", but that part did not receive the same public attention as the term "war on drugs".[11][12][13] However, two years prior to this, Nixon had formally declared a "war on drugs" that would be directed toward eradication, interdiction, and incarceration.[14] Today, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the War on Drugs, estimates that the United States spends $51 billion annually on these initiatives.[15]"
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"Misguided teens" are gathering for support to end the long-term effects of a misguided policy: the War on Drugs.
The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal: minor offences like being caught with a few grams of weed...
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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How to rip/deceive a "sphere of influence" from a rival, and create "the proxy" to do the heavy hitting, while "sitting on the fence" eating popcorn and chips.
"...this report assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood that measure could be successfully implemented and actually extend Russia. Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Some of these policies, however, also might prompt adverse reactions from other U.S. adversaries — most notably, China — that could, in turn, stress the United States. Ultimately, this report concludes that the most attractive U.S. policy options to extend Russia — with the greatest benefits, highest likelihood of success, and least risk — are in the economic domain, featuring a combination of boosting U.S. energy production and sanctions, providing the latter are multilateral. In contrast, geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself and ideological measures to undermine the regime's stability carry significant risks. Finally, many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains."
RAND Report (2019)
The Plan was followed verbatim.
Available for free, for all to read, on the internet.
Sorry, no "Jermins" involved in drawing this up to point fingers at...
"Most attractive" (sic.) to make the megabucks, and of course if one is "the good guy, eternally on the right side of history" is if others die (as revealed by "the honorable" Dan Crensaw and the likes).
And what does "could stress the USA"(sic.) mean?
Who exactly is ending up "could be stressed"?
The upper 10% holding 80% of the wealth and assets?
No, it is of course the lower classes worthy of being "written off" (middle class and below, 50% of whom couldn't even pay a 400$ emergency), and the extreme poor.
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@patriciabrenner9216 I have a better idea for you.
Instead of spreading hatred in a post-WW2 united Europe, why don't you rather sign a petition to get current French leaders to apologize for the millions of victims of French "lebenstraum" dreams in North Africa?
820,000 victims before WW2, and another 1,5 million victims of French crimes of war of oppression, murder, massacres, rapes, pillaging, a divide and rule policies, after WW2 (colonialism).
"There will be "no repentance nor apologies" for the occupation of Algeria or the bloody eight-year war that ended French rule, Macron's office said, adding that the French leader would instead take part in "symbolic acts" aimed at promoting reconciliation."
[FROM FRANCE 24]
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@bobs_toys The barbarian government is Apartheid Israel...
It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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In 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt went to Warsaw and made his famous "Kniefall", asking for forgiveness for the crimes against humanity of a previous generation of Germans...
"The Briggs' Plan was a military plan devised by British general Sir Harold Briggs shortly after his appointment in 1950 as Director of Operations during the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). The plan aimed to defeat the Malayan National Liberation Army by cutting them off from their sources of support amongst the rural population.[1]
To achieve this a large programme of forced resettlement of Malayan peasantry was undertaken, under which about 500,000 people (roughly ten percent of Malaya's population) were forcibly transferred from their land and moved to newly-constructed settlements known as "New villages".[2] During the Emergency there were over 400 of these settlements. Furthermore, 10,000 Malaysian Chinese suspected of being communist sympathisers were deported to the People's Republic of China in 1949.[3]
The Orang Asli were also targeted for forced relocation by the Briggs' Plan because the British believing that they were supporting the communists.
Many of the practices necessary for the Briggs' Plan were prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and customary international law which stated that the destruction of property must not happen unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.[5]"
Note here. This happened during times of peace, not war.
A pathetic "empire" burning down entire regions, looting, deporting innocent people, setting up concentration camps and calling them "happy villages"...
Tell me dear.
Where do you live?
Have any of your leaders ever asked for forgiveness for crimes carried out by a previous generation?
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Agreed.
However, British leaders were fools, and ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
[Search for: britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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@2Dylandog Re. your comment.
Of course, there was a relatively easy "recipe for success" to ensure the future of the British Empire.
Your comment = internal pressure (rising worldwide nationalism)
My above comments = external pressures
I'm from South Africa, so I can draw parallels: The same Apartheid which led to the failure of South Africa in the 1970s/1980s is the same "apartheid" which led to the end of the British Empire.
Of course, in both cases the gentlemen in control were too slow to pull the helm around, and change the disastrous course they were on.
For the British Empire.
1) Make timely internal changes:
In a nutshell, more "freedom, liberty, and self-determination" for all the subjects of the British Empire, thereby turning it into a "Pound block of equals" of sorts.
2) dump the disaster created by their own Policy of Balance of Power:
That pitted GB/Empire against the strongest continental power/alliance/country as a default setting.
It was a few "London lords" who once led the way, stiff-upper-lipping their way over the proverbial "lemming cliff", because of pride and arrogance (leading to an unwillingness to change), thereby leading to the situations which caused "Empire" to fade away in less than a lifetime.
From the unmistakable nr.1 at the turn of the century (around 1900), down to "merely on par" with the "new best fwiends" the USA, down to "third fiddle" in the Cold War...
All "engineered" by The American Century, using the same political/financial/policy "tools" (because after 1900 geography slowly began giving Washington DC the leverage/advantage), that London once used when London had the geographical advantage (during the 19th and early-20th century)...
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"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics.
The real question that should be asked, and therefore the premise of any debate is: Was it wise at the time?
To which the simple answer is "no".
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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So Bomber "do our worst" Harris set off to flatten Germany, with a policy called Area Bombing, thereby ruining the financial foundation of the British Empire in the process.
Hadn't he heard of THE AMERICAN CENTURY?
Maybe they didn't have google back then.
Too bad...
So what was the "return on investment" for the Allied war machine?
What was the value of a policy of killing "enemy" civilians, and sending out bombers to level city centers?
How much bang for the buck did it result in.
Google, download and read:
BRITAIN 1939 – 1945: THE ECONOMIC COST OF STRATEGIC BOMBING
One can spend a few hours reading this....OR...I'll condense it into a few short lines:
The same people who started terror bombing civilians on a grand scale in Mesototamia in the 1920s (Churchill/Portal/Harris) thought that all one needed to do to "win" was to scale up the terror.
[Google: bbc(dot)com/news/magazine-29441383]
End effect = they "bombed "empire" into financial oblivion, with little real effect for the soldiers on the front lines.
The resources wasted (between a third and half, depending on the criterea used) on "flattening Germany" during WW2 was not available to stand up to Communism and The American Century after the war was over and down went London's interests.
From rulers of the world in 1900, down to 3rd fiddle after WW2, all in less than a lifetime.
Time for others to "rule the world".
Gee, thanks Arthur "while torching with glee, my fwiends deceived me" Harris.
We're all soooooo gweatfull....
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@the boss Yup.
But look on the bright side.
Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
OPERATION UNTHINKABLE STATUS: BURIED
GB STATUS: BOMBED INTO TOTAL FINANCIAL BANKRUPTCY
BRITISH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE STATUS: SUPERSEDED
PAX BRITANNICA STATUS: CANCELLED"
EMPIRE STATUS: GAME OVER
Reap as you sow counts for all.
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The price for a "flattened Germany" would be paid after WW2.
Of course, Germany as a power, benefited the British Empire.
Empire's "fwiends"?
Of course, they had their own agendas.
Washington DC followed the principle of "America first", even if not propagating this aloud...
[Google: The American_Century]
If London or Paris thought there'd be "another Versailles" after WW2, with the British and French empires "drawing lines on the map" and "carving up people/territory/powers" to protect their own interests, they were to be disappointed...
[britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
The attempt by Churchill to use the USA to throw Stalin out of Eastern Europe, and remain "the balancer" of power, too transparent.
[Google: Operation_Unthinkable 1944]
There would be no US support to start Unthinkable.
The "poor Poles have to be liberated"-argument, wasn't swinging...
After being dragged into another European (World) War, Washington decided to become the "balancer of powers" herself, and Europe was divided in "East" and "West"...
Stalin quickly and instinctively figured out that Washington DC wouldn't sacrifice US soldiers just so that London could have a few "percentages" of influence in Central Europe...
[Google: Percentages_agreement Churchill and Stalin]
Stalin: "I'll tear this up this scrap of paper now. Here's Greece. I'll take the rest, including your friends Poland 100%. What are you going to do about it?"
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Agreed.
However, British leaders were fools, and ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
[Search for: britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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@HaceSunnyDSol Yes, the past few years, US influence has steeply declined, as the power of China increased. That is exactly my point.
The Washington power players of The American Century don't like it.
The USA and Philippines might have their differences, but concerning military matters, and spheres of influence (see the Spratly Island conflict), they are certainly aligned.
With South Korea, the issue is of course that in case of a full-blown war with North Korea, they have most to lose. So when Trump started his "little rocket man" provocations, they obviously quickly chose a path of conciliation with the North.
Trump of course, trying to coerce Kim away from Beijing's hold, being a client state, of course also didn't go unnoticed.
Yes, with Putin it is of course more complex.
But I assume everyone has a price, and selling out North Stream in return for (say) the USA acknowledging Moscow's land grab in the Crimea, and interest in eastern Ukraine, could be (speculative of course) just such a "backroom deal". For example a US veto in the Security Council.
In politics, just like in real life, everything has a price tag attached.
It is simply a question of "offers" and "demands".
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Around 1900 Europe's problems originated in London: other powers' security issues were of little or no concern to the lords.
London's position: the default enemy in any war threatening the continental balance of power was the most likely to succeed.
London did not care about "right" or "wrong".
The main consideration in peacetime was who had the strongest economy/military.
Answer = balance it out, by "jumping in the scale" opposing the biggest "weight".
The main consideration in a war involving the main powers was who was winning.
Answer = balance it out, by "jumping in the scale" opposing the biggest "weight".
The strongest state/alliance = Germany/Austria-Hungary (alliance) = most likely to succeed = the main rival in peace = the default enemy in war.
There would be no comprehensive European security agreement of any kind around the year 1900, when it bacame painfully obvious that one was needed (global shift in the balance of power).
London would see to it.
There would be no comprehensive continental European security agreement of any kind either (in order to at least locally address imbalances).
London lords would turn up to "make a pig's breakfast" out of it.
And they would always find a few "just best fwiends/no obligations"-fools falling for their tricks.
John F. Kennedy once said that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable".
Of course he was refering to domestic US politics.
I wonder if he also grasped that he was also perfectly explaining Europe "around 1900".
For those who make peaceful evolution (of power, states) impossible will make violent evolution inevitable.
And today?
Just imagine.
A comprehensive European security agreement signed around the year 2000 could have saved Europe from all this stress and chaos we are experiencing today. Note: A comprehensive European security agreement should have included Russia, seeing that Russia is in Europe.
There is even an insider joke about NATO, which is that it intends to "keep Germany down, and Russia out".
That is literally how "divide and rule/conquer" works (see below comments thread).
Effect: Washington DC/USA stays the master of European affairs, and EU "partners" are only nominally independent, just as policy was implemented after WW2 (see below comments thread). NATO is now just another tool in the toolbox of Washington DC's "divide and rule/conquer"-strategy going back all the way to the 18th century when the USA was first established.
Note that the words "to rule" has different meanings: one of which is to have an advantage in power, meaning that what one wants carries far more weight that what those "ruled to" want.
After 1776: US leaders realized that the key to their own survival lay in keeping Europeans as divided as possible by whichever limited means at their disposal at the time.
After WW2: US leaders realized that the key to their own continued superiority lay in dividing Europeans any which way they could. Russians are of course Europeans.
NATO has been "morphed" by the reality of the end of the Cold War.
From "unite the survivors of WW2 in Western Europe against communism" (Truman Doctrine, 1945) to become after the end of the Cold War (1990s) simply a tool to divide Europe for the continued gain and superiority/domination of the American Century.
Little "weany Europeans" bowing down to "big daddy 'merica" will pay the price, while the USA sits on the fence eating popcorn and chips, awaiting the outcome...
The only thing which Europeans had exchanged, was their "divider and ruler".
The oldest game in the book.
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@Jameson-d8x "Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics.
The real question that should be asked, and therefore the premise of any debate is: Was it wise at the time?
To which the simple answer is "no".
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
London had played the "balancing games" for centuries, and finally lost.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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"Right or wrong", or "Was it a war crime", or "Who started", is all irrelevant.
Our elites have divided us "commoners" and "grunts", and are agitating behind closed doors, while we do the squabbling...
Because there's always a big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
[Google: britannica & balance-of-power]
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, still angered by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to play "balancing games" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...you loose your empire to the new kids in town...
From the unmistakable "Nr.1" in 1900, down to "merely on par" with Washington DC after WW1, down to "third fiddle" during the Cold War. All in less than a single lifetime...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself. The world was divided in "East" and "West".
And down went the British Empire too...
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Well, it won't be the first time in history that Europe's strongest nation was made "the enemy" as default setting by a few "lords", even though at a time (all throughout the mid-19th century, right up to 1880s) when most leaders, business partnerships, and common folks got along just fine...
[From Britannica...."Within the European balance of power, Great Britain played the role of the “balancer,” or “holder of the balance.” It was not permanently identified with the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its weight at one time on one side, at another time on another side, guided largely by one consideration—the maintenance of the balance itself."]
The truth of course, that an own policy determined that no geopolitical form of co-operation with Germany was possible as secretly decided in London.
Policy?
The strongest nation is the enemy/rival.
Some things never change...
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@peterrezac881 It's not about "open your eyes" or "being woke" but something far deeper.
I know about the principle of "multiple people, combined in multiple entities, working towards multiple causes".
The independent US justice system aims at not becoming a tool of any entity/agenda, especially of politicians and their advisors, by remaining independent, using laws as guidelines (not agendas or money aka corruption).
Note, US courts don't "believe", or use speculation ("seems likely"), and don't simply convict based on "suspicion", or allow "he said/she said"-evidence.
Admirable.
I suggest to leave the question re. "evidence" to courts, and not "agendas", irrelevant of ideology.
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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Yup.
Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
OPERATION UNTHINKABLE STATUS: BURIED
GB STATUS: BOMBED INTO TOTAL FINANCIAL BANKRUPTCY
BRITISH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE STATUS: SUPERSEDED
PAX BRITANNICA STATUS: CANCELLED"
EMPIRE STATUS: GAME OVER
Reap as you sow counts for all.
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@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup Unfortunately, this channel doesn't allow me to add links, so I'll repost it without:
@012345678 9876543210 Yes, the word "fact" would be wrong.
The word "assumption" or "strong suspicion" would align with the facts created after WW2, when the USA took over as the Nr.1 from GB (London). Of course, the 2 superpowers scenario of the Cold War is taken for granted as true, so how did it get to that?
Because Washington DC sent US soldiers to fight for The American Century, not the British Century. After WW2, the American Century refused to give London nukes to stand up to the commies, and reclaim Empire's Balance of Power on the continent (aka "The Percentages Agreement, or "shared British interests" with the SU).
Facts:
1) before 1945, there was a European "Balance of Power" dictated by London at Versailles, which protected the British Empire and favored British interests, and
2) a post-1945 there was a Global "Balance of Power" determined by Washington, and which favored Washington's interests
Washington DC silently followed the principle of "America first", even if not propagating this aloud...
[Google: wiki/American_Century]
If in 1945, London or Paris thought there'd be "another Versailles", like happened in 1919 against US wishes (14 points), with the British and French empires "drawing lines on the map" and "carving up power" on the continent to protect their own interests, they were to be disappointed...
[Google: britannica
topic/balance-of-power]
The attempt by Churchill to use the USA to throw Stalin out of Eastern Europe, and remain "the balancer" of power, too transparent.
[Google: Operation_Unthinkable 1945]
There would be no US support to start Unthinkable.
After being dragged into another European (World) War, Washington decided to become the "balancer of powers" herself, and Europe was divided in "East" and "West". With a simple 'no' to Unthinkable, Washington DC had taken over the role of nr.1 in the the world.
In view of these events, it is safe to assume that when Eisenhower said "beware of the Military Industrial Complex", he was simply stating something which already existed defacto.
As individuals, most Americans never conceded to the role of "World Policemen".
One day it was suddenly there, and nobody asked any voter for permission to end isolation.
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@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup Yes, excellent essay, and something I've always thought.
In fact when Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, he must have instinctively felt that it meant "game over" for the British Empire, built on "top down" domination and exploitation.
The USAs approach with indirect rule fitted the 20th century far better.
At the time (late-19th/early 20th century) the leaders of the British Empire seemed to have held the mistaken idea that closer relations with the USA would guarantee their Empire against "greedy continental rivals", but they were wrong.
They were looking in the wrong direction.
Because, the type of rule or economy or political model chosen, plays little role in the outcome of whether one "rules the world" or not.
Geography plays a far bigger role.
So at the turn of century London "ruled the world" because geography isolated them from the continent and their island status gave them the upper hand at a time when war was still the common way to determine "top dog" or not. They could play out the ambitions of rulers on the continent against each other (see Balance of Power), always siding with the weaker waring state or empire, and thereby "engineer" solutions which they perceived would guarantee the survival of their Empire.
When development of weapons produced ever further reaching weapons of war, GB's island status did not offer the same measure of protection anymore...so they went down.
The weapons of 1900 couldn't harm the British Empire, but the weapons of 1945 could, as you aptly pointed out.
In that era around WW2, it was the USA which was (as the sole power) isolated from this "great game", and benefited as the result of its geographical isolation...
[Today, with nukes, that "logic" of using (or rather "misusing") conventional wars to become top dog does not apply anymore].
US leaders like Wilson (WW1) or Roosevelt (WW2) knew they just had to wait long enough for European leaders to dismantle what 500 years of empire building had achieved, and to pick up the pieces.
Not that I mourn their passing. They were injust and cruel, resulting in endless misery and too much one-way benefit.
That movement of "going west" (Manifest Destiny = N. America, followed by Monroe Dictrine = N and S. American) started with the consolidation of power with the Civil War, and ended when US President Eisenhower forced GB and France (together with Israel) to stand down in the Suez Crisis. For all practical reasons ending the period in history when London or Paris got to decide on the defense or the expansion of their spheres of influence...
If it wasn't yet quite clear who the alpha male was, and who the beta males...that was it. Of course, all conveyed in very friendly manner, and very diplomatically, as usual :-)
In that respect, there were many visionary US leaders.
The end of WW2, simultaneously spelled the end of European dominance of world affairs, and Pax Britannica.
Not that they did a really good job of it, because (the openly proclaimed) "Pax Britannica" and (secret backroom deal by a few London lords) "Policy of Balance of Power" created the conflict of interest which would lead to the end of Europe.
It takes a bit of thinking, but that's what happened.
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The question why it took GB 7 years after WW2, to carry out their 1st nuclear test, even though the technology had already been developed by international scientist (also British) before 1945.
Because its the American Century for those who walk the corridors of power, and fairy tales of the "Big Three" and "cute Uncle Joe" for those who don't understand how the world really works...
Because in WW2 the concept of "a Big Three" was a joke, because the "big three" were not only allies, but also rivals.
Each wanting to be on top once the war was over...
At the turn of the century, nothing symbolized power and rule like the big gun battleships, and by 1945 nothing symbolized power and rule like the mushroom cloud of a nuke...
But while at the end of WW1 the powers got together and divided and negotiated who would get what share of the "symbol of power (Washington Naval Treaty, 1922), at the end of WW2, there would be no such negotiations.
Strange...
Big daddy USA said to the rest of the world "you shall not have nuclear weapons!"
[Google how that unfolded with: "history/british-nuclear-program]
Strange, how "best friend forever" would let the financially drained GB spend 5 years and millions of Pounds on developing a weapon for themselves which was already completed in development...and just had to be handed over to "a friend"...
Strange also, that during WW2 GB merrily gave their "special friend" all the best war-winning secrets (Tizzard Committee, and all that), but when it became time for the "new best friend" to return the favor, and give the secret of nuclear arms back to GB whose scientists had helped develop nukes in the USA, the answer was "no, it's mine".
1945 Washington DC: "If you want nukes, develop them yourself. In the meantime, I'll dismantle your empire. What are you going to do about it?"
That's how leverage works.
Rule Britannia, replaced by the American Century.
Pax Britannica, replaced by Pax Americana.
Why didn't Washington DC/The American Century give their "special friends" the secret of nuclear bombs in 1945?
A great question...
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@zsoltpeter2858 Strategische Bombardierung ist die teuerste Art der Kriegsführung überhaupt.
Die Briten haben sich selbst in den Bankrott gebombt, weil sie unbedingt jede Stadt plattbombadieren wolltet.
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every civilian killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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@voodooprince5561 No, laugh at fools...
So British leaders bombed the British Empire into ruin.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
Sorreeee. That's what happens when you make the wrong "fwiends".
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
Nice exchange.
The current generation of kiddies can chant "Bomber Harris do it again" for all eternity.
It only cost the Brits their Empire...
Seems like a fair deal.
😆😅😂😁😀
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In 1945, the crowds understandably cheered the end of the war...
Meanwhile as the crowds cheered and jeered, in the background, big daddy USA ate up the British Empire:
"What actually occurred was that Britain and other countries became hopelessly indebted to the United States once again (edit: during World War 2) ... “We have profited by our past mistakes,” announced Roosevelt in a speech delivered on September 3, 1942. “This time we shall know how to make full use of victory.” This time the U.S. Government would conquer its allies in a more enlightened manner, by demanding economic concessions of a legal and political nature instead of futilely seeking repayment of its wartime loans (of World War 1). The new postwar strategy sought and secured foreign markets for U.S. exports, and new fields for American investment capital in Europe’s raw materials producing colonial areas. Despite Roosevelt’s assurances to the contrary, Britain was compelled, under the Lend-Lease agreements and the terms of the first great U.S. postwar loan to Britain, to relinquish Empire Preference and to open all its markets to U.S. competition, at a time when Britain desperately needed these markets as a means by which to fund its sterling debt. Most important of all, Britain was forced to unblock its sterling and foreign-exchange balances built up by its colonies and other Sterling Area countries during the wartime years. Instead of the Allied Powers as a whole bearing the costs of these wartime credits to British Empire countries, they would be borne by Britain itself. Equally important, they would not be used as “blocked” balances that could be used only to buy British or other Sterling Area exports, but would be freed to purchase exports from any nation. Under postwar conditions this meant that they would be used in large part to purchase U.S. exports." (page 115/116)
"By relinquishing its right to block these balances, Britain gave up its option, while enabling the United States to make full use of its gold stock as the basis for postwar lending to purchased generalized (primarily U.S.) exports. At a stroke, Britain’s economic power was broken. What Germany as foe had been unable to accomplish in two wars against Britain, the United States accomplished with ease as its ally." (Page 117)
"Furthermore, under the terms on which it joined the International Monetary Fund, Britain could not devalue the pound sterling so as to dissipate the foreign-exchange value of these balances. Its liability thus was maximized – and so was America’s gain from the pool of liquidity that these balances now represented." ("Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire." -- Michael Hudson, 2nd edition 2003)
In case that seems a bit technical, here is the "nutshell version": Like like the bank takes your house if you don't pay up in the real world, the British Empire was run into the ground by the "best friends" USA, who stole the Empire's markets hidden behind a whole lot of "technical jargon"..
1945: Brits got screwed out of their Empire by their best friends.
Yup...so it goes...
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@appletree6741 My favorite imperialist quote/standpoint of all times must be "if I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it," (which can be searched) which honestly I don't know whether I should be ROFL or tearing my hair out in disbelief and grief. In fact the essence of all historical imperialist greed during the era of European imperialism, because all the leaders of the imperialist powers and all their fanboys (and few fangirls too, I assume) thought that if they didn't rock up some place hundreds or thousands of miles away from their place of birth, to stick their banner down (or paper-plant-down the "rights" of their corporations "Smedley-Butler"-style), or "teach lessons" to some locals, that some or other different imperialist, waving a different banner, and chanting a different slogan, might just beat them to it. All such cases of imperialists accusing others of being imperialists, and the excuse then being that "if I don't do WRONG, then somebody else will do WRONG before I get there".
The imperialist mindset is exposed BY the "imperialist" (or apologists), by way of what they consider the "norm".
IMHO, at some point in a debate, every activist for a cause should just take a gun in their hands, and actually start shooting for what they so vociferously support with their words.
Unfortunately, the world is filled to the brim with those who are very vocal in their support of a cause during the countdown, or when its only about words, but when it comes to the actual clash, there is an entire list of reasons why they or their kids shouldn't be in the trenches....
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Your "heroes" bombed the British Empire into ruin.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
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@Blanka1100 NATO expansion was Washington DC policy, because they feared losing the "sole world hegemon"-status to a more united/owerful Europe.
"By mid-1992, a consensus emerged within the administration that NATO enlargement was a wise realpolitik measure to strengthen Euro-American hegemony.[41][42] In the absence of NATO enlargement, Bush administration officials worried that the European Union might fill the security vacuum in Central Europe, and thus challenge American post-Cold War influence.[41] There was further debate during the Presidency of Bill Clinton between a rapid offer of full membership to several select countries versus a slower, more limited membership to a wide range of states over a longer time span. Victory by the Republican Party, who advocated for aggressive expansion, in the 1994 US congressional election helped sway US policy in favor of wider full-membership enlargement, which the US ultimately pursued in the following years.[43] In 1996, Clinton called for former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Soviet republics to join NATO, and made NATO enlargement a part of his foreign policy.[44]" (wiki)
Therefore, NATO/EU needed the further "enemy" in order to keep the status quo, of a dependant Europe.
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"Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with (feelings). As Huxley remarked ... the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.'..." Neil Postman.
Huxley is less well-known, but far more correct.
The information, sufficient to understand "what happened" (in history), and "what is happening today" (news/headlines) is out there. But "what happens/is happening" is drowned out by a cacophony of irrelevant information, leading the overwhelming majority of people to simply "switch of"...simply repeating "narratives" in order to fit in with their surroundings.
Majorities ending up thinking their own "narratives" are the only correct ones.
Mission accomplished.
That is what strategists aim to achieve.
"Divide and rule/conquer."
Europe has been "divided" and "ruled" over for more than a hundred years.
Around 1900:
There was an informal alliance of "English speaking races" (lol, King Edward in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, see footnote***) taking shape, which was busy "informally nodding off" each others' conquests.
The logical conclusion with regards to that should have been that according to age-old rules, the answer would have needed to be to create an alliance of "non-English speaking...ahem...'races'..." (to quote the advocates of "English speaking races" ruling the world").
Logic/reasoning: "Balance of Power"-strategy, which is neutral and unbiased.
The fools were elsewhere.
Not even mainly in Berlin.
Almost everything else is "divide and rule/conquer".
Millions of ancillary details, to confuse and divide...
Today, the problem is not that there is too little information which is "controlled by a few 1%-ters" (Orwell).
The issue is there is too much clutter (Huxley).
Huxley correctly points out that leaders don't really have to hide/burn much with "Operation Legacy"-style deceit, one just has to make it too boring or complicated to read for the indifferent/ignorant/complacent crowds...making the deceit right out there in our faces.
The ignorant rant...
The complacent don't know or act...
The indifferent don't care.
The "cannon fodder" of history.
Around 1900:
The London lords thought they could use their geographical advantage to divide the continent, and thereby always be in a position "to rule" during crises and wars.
In the end they became a tool themselves: of the "division" of Europe by Washington DC (note, in geography "Europe" includes GB).
As the lords went about looking for tools to play "divide and rule" within other European powers/states, they became tools themselves.
***Footnote:
From ROYAL PAINS: WILHELM II, EDWARD VII, AND ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS, 1888-1910 A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron: Edward in a letter to Roosevelt: 'I look forward with confidence to the co-operation of the English-speaking races becoming the most powerful civilizing factor in the policy of the world.'
An ancillary detail, which seems to have gone under in the clutter.
"Civilizing factor" of course, nothing else but the hooded language of these "few" to kill a few people every now and then, in order to earn megabucks for themselves, while convincing millions that they were the 'good cops'...
Those so convinced pay the taxes to bankroll the "cops", while the profits have always been raked in elsewhere.
Of course (reality) "military industrial complexes" have existed ever since the first blacksmith realized he could earn more by selling swords to a rich king, rather than to sell ploughs to poor farmers...
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How did the USA go from an obscure colony to the world's nr.1 in the space of a relatively short time.
To discover how it happened in "a blink of an eye" on the timeline of modern history, let's go next level.
The impact of strategies on history.
These strategies are universal, and it therefore does not matter who one quotes, or what level of society or politics one refers to (micro- v. macro level dynamics in hierarchies).
"Observe calmly, secure our position, cope with affairs calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership." Deng Xiaoping
To loosely quote strategy, Washington DC just had to wait long enough until their rivals messed up.
On the "empires"-level the USA's strategy starting around 1900 was fairly simple:
1) keep European powers as "divided" as possible, implemented by whatever means possible, but mainly using favoratism.
2) wait for ALL the others to fail.
Would such a strategy, whether planned or the unintentional effect of prior actions guarantee a success? Answer: NO
There is never a guarantee for anything in strategy, but if one has the geographical advantage (distance from squibbling Europeans, coupled with an own rising population, raw materials, a rapidly gathering industrial/financial base, increased education = increased innovation, all constituting "power"), then the US elites in their "preferred system" of corporatism could simply sit it out.
What was effected by favoratism was a "pecking order" of "friends" with access to Washington DC.
It does not matter how one justifies this political pecking order, because "justified" = an appeal to emotion = difficult to objectify.
What is important, is THAT a pecking order of European powers with access to Washington DC was established over a relatively short time around the year 1900.
Note here: A little-known detail is that one of the first US choices in this "pecking order" of European powers was actually Imperial Russia (by the Theodore Roosevelt administration). Why would the USA possibly "favor" Russia as a "choice"?
My suggestion: Look at a map every now and then, and consider the European balance of power at the times, and the aims and goals of these European powers at the time...
Is this an unimportant little detail, because it "did not happen"? No, this is VERY important, because it reveals strategies.
Simply saying "it did not happen, therefore it is not important" is a gross misrepresentation of history, which will then result in a gross misrepresentation of current events.
Anyway.
Any European division = a so-called "win - win" for the USA.
To the USA it did not matter what happened in Europe.
Whether Europeans ended up happily singing Kumbayah, or tore each other to shreds...it would be a "win" for somebody in the American Century. As long as there was no common European policy or overly powerful alliance in a comprehensive European security agreement (of sorts) which could potentially be directed at US plans to expand, there was nothing on the "elite"-level in the USA to worry about...
Note also that all of the above solely deals with the "elite"-level, so there is no need for anybody to feel personally offended.
Since no elites ever asked the "average American", there is also no need for any "average American" to feel offended on behalf of these decision makers, unless they choose to be. Also true, for all historical and current events, and for all citizens of all states.
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@jhnssch6744 Maybe read my comment again :-)
No US politician from either party will end the War on Drugs, the root cause of so much violence.
Read the WIKI article on the War on Drugs, which is a good, neutral analysis.
Because for more than 30 years million dollar "consulting fees" have been paid to analyze the efficacy of "fighting drugs", and all of them have reached a similar conclusion.
"Fighting drugs", especially abroad, to the tune of 50 billion bucks each year = effect = zilch, zero, nada, nill, nothing...
Yet, good ol' USA carries on fighting...
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@bolivar2153 Don't even try to insinuate that if there had been (for whatever reason) been a WW3, that Moscow, Stalingrad, Kiev, Leningrad, Warsaw, etc. would not have been nuked, accompanied by chants of reap what you sow or got what they deserved.
You see, Jack/Joe/Igor/Fritz/Alain "the plumber" are not the brightest.
Like dogs, their masters just throw a stick out there, and they run. The children of rote learning don't asked critical questions like "Why tf am I soposed to run after a stick?" 😆😅
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Policies divide people.
People are not divided as a default setting.
They are divided by leaders.
The violence we see today was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal: minor offences like being caught with a few grams of weed...
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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@Lars So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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Reap as you sow counts for all.
The price for a "flattened Germany" would be paid after WW2.
Of course, Germany as a "power", benefited the British Empire.
With this "power" wiped out, Empire became indefensible.
Empire's "fwiends"?
Of course, they had their own agendas.
Washington DC followed the principle of "America first", even if not propagating this aloud...
[Google: The American_Century]
If London or Paris thought there'd be "another Versailles" after WW2, with the British and French empires "drawing lines on the map" and "carving up people/territory/powers" to protect their own interests, they were to be disappointed...
[britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
The attempt by Churchill to use the USA to throw Stalin out of Eastern Europe, and remain "the balancer" of power, too transparent.
[Google: Operation_Unthinkable 1944]
There would be no US support to start Unthinkable.
The "poor Poles have to be liberated"-argument, wasn't swinging...
After being dragged into another European (World) War, Washington decided to become the "balancer of powers" herself, and Europe was divided in "East" and "West"...
Stalin quickly and instinctively figured out that Washington DC wouldn't sacrifice US soldiers just so that London could have a few "percentages" of influence in Central Europe...
[Google: Percentages_agreement Churchill and Stalin]
Stalin: "I'll tear this up this scrap of paper now. Here's Greece. I'll take the rest, including your friends Poland 100%. What are you going to do about it?"
Sow "more than the measure", then "reap" the demise of influence, and your "empire"...
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@paulreed6822 The question why it took GB 7 years after WW2, to carry out their 1st nuclear test, even though the technology had already been developed by international scientist (also British) before 1945.
Because its the American Century for those who walk the corridors of power, and fairy tales of the "Big Three" and "cute Uncle Joe" for those who don't understand how the world really works...
Because in WW2 the concept of "a Big Three" was a joke, because the "big three" were not only allies, but also rivals.
Each wanting to be on top once the war was over...
At the turn of the century, nothing symbolized power and rule like the big gun battleships, and by 1945 nothing symbolized power and rule like the mushroom cloud of a nuke...
But while at the end of WW1 the powers got together and divided and negotiated who would get what share of the "symbol of power (Washington Naval Treaty, 1922), at the end of WW2, there would be no such negotiations.
Strange...
Big daddy USA said to the rest of the world "you shall not have nuclear weapons!"
[Google how that unfolded with: "history/british-nuclear-program]
Strange, how "best friend forever" would let the financially drained GB spend 5 years and millions of Pounds on developing a weapon for themselves which was already completed in development...and just had to be handed over to "a friend"...
Strange also, that during WW2 GB merrily gave their "special friend" all the best war-winning secrets (Tizzard Committee, and all that), but when it became time for the "new best friend" to return the favor, and give the secret of nuclear arms back to GB whose scientists had helped develop nukes in the USA, the answer was "no, it's mine".
1945 Washington DC: "If you want nukes, develop them yourself. In the meantime, I'll dismantle your empire. What are you going to do about it?"
That's how leverage works.
After WW2, GB was flat broke. Washington wouldn't give it nuclear technology to defend their empire.
Flat broke and unable to defend their own sphere of influence....and down went the British Empire...
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@patriciabrenner9216 Yes.
Agreed.
It was fine.
It was "fine" how British leaders bombed the British Empire into ruin.
Apparently, sending "bbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"-Lancs around to "flatten Germany", was a too expensive burden for a failing empire to shoulder...
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
Sorreeee. That's what happens when you make the wrong "fwiends".
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
Nice exchange.
The current generation of kiddies can chant "Bomber Harris do it again" for all eternity.
It only cost the Brits their Empire...
Seems like a fair deal.
Very "fine" indeed.
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@AW-dt8ct At the time Frampol was bombed, it was also around 50 miles behind the frontlines, and already abandoned by most of the inhabitants, which had fled, expecting the ground war to reach it soon.
Just like the allies during WW2, LW air crews were forbidden to return to base with their bomb loads in case the intended targets couldn't be found, or (in case they were troop concentrations), had already dispersed when the aircraft arrived.
It therefore makes more sense that it was bombed as a "target of opportunity", because the original intended targets weren't found.
Note the facts. It burned for several days because the inhabitants had fled (around 10 people died), meaning that no firefighters fought the fires, and the flames could subsequently eat its way from house to house.
Not saying this was "better", or not a "war crime" (it still was), but reports or historians telling you it was "bombed by 700 tons of bombs for fun" (or similar) are lying.
A real military historian would point out that the LW suffered from a munitions crisis at the time, and would have hardly bombed anything "for fun".
Also, look at aerial photographs of the town after the attack.
There are almost no bomb craters outside of the town perimeter, and the fields around. This points at an attack by a few aircraft, at low level, and in a short period (bombing run).
If the smoke from fires had obscured the town, the bombs would have been spread into the fields surrounding Frampol.
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Yup, I heard evil government's going to send in the military...
Good.
Maybe they should start beating and torturing random innocent Americans suspected of being naughty, as they have been doing in other places in the world for years, and years...
Good.
Popcorn and chips for the rest of the world.
Chickens coming home to roost....
"Residents of Fallujah called them "the Murderous Maniacs" because of how they treated Iraqis in detention. They were soldiers of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division...
One officer and two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) of the 82nd Airborne who witnessed abuse, speaking on condition of anonymity, described in multiple interviews with Human Rights Watch howtheir battalion in 2003-2004 routinely used physical and mental torture as a means of intelligence gathering....
According to their accounts, the torture and other mistreatment of Iraqis....
Military Intelligence personnel, they said, directed and encouraged army personnel to subject prisoners to forced, repetitive exercise, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness...
At least one interrogator beat detainees in front of other soldiers.
Soldiers also incorporated daily beatings of detainees in preparation for interrogations."
[hrw.org]
But, of course, only "bad people" will get targeted.
If history teaches us one thing, it is "beware of what you wish for..."
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So Bomber "do our worst" Harris set off to flatten Germany, with a policy called Area Bombing, thereby ruining the financial foundation of the British Empire in the process.
Hadn't he heard of THE AMERICAN CENTURY?
Maybe they didn't have google back then.
Too bad...
So what was the "return on investment" for the Allied war machine?
What was the value of a policy of killing "enemy" civilians, and sending out bombers to level city centers?
How much bang for the buck did it result in.
Google, download and read:
BRITAIN 1939 – 1945: THE ECONOMIC COST OF STRATEGIC BOMBING
One can spend a few hours reading this....OR...I'll condense it into a few short lines:
The same people who started terror bombing civilians on a grand scale in Mesototamia in the 1920s (Churchill/Portal/Harris) thought that all one needed to do to "win" was to scale up the terror.
[Google: bbc(dot)com/news/magazine-29441383]
End effect = they "bombed "empire" into financial oblivion, with little real effect for the soldiers on the front lines.
The resources wasted (between a third and half, depending on the criterea used) on "flattening Germany" during WW2 was not available to stand up to Communism and The American Century after the war was over and down went London's interests.
From rulers of the world in 1900, down to 3rd fiddle after WW2, all in less than a lifetime.
Time for others to "rule the world".
Gee, thanks Arthur "while torching with glee, my fwiends deceived me" Harris.
We're all soooooo gweatfull....
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@patriciabrenner9216 The Bible says to remove the splinters from the own eyes, before judging others...
Google the Children of the Creuze. More than 1,000 small children were forcibly removed from their parents, from the island of Reunion, promised "the good life" in France, and then mistreated as practical slaves on farms and in construction.
When did this happen?
1600? No
1700? No.
1800? No.
1900? Not even...
It was during the 1960s and 1970s, and your native country France, responsible for this mistreatment, refuses to pay compensation.
Instead of whining here about the crimes of others, what are you doing today, to rectify the crimes carried out by France?
Or, don't you think you are responsible?
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Your "heroes" bombed the British Empire into ruin.
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
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The advocacy for "total war", more "total" than one can imagine, counts for all...
The intended complete destruction of Germany as a "power", and removal of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe turned out to be a massive "shot in the own foot" for the West.
The 12 million Germans which were expelled from Eastern Europe, actually protected the West, and by extension, also the British Empire.
By their acquiescence to removing them as a "sphere of influence", London no longer had the leverage to enforce treaties, or protect own interests.
Really as simple as that...
The big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, still angry about Mers el Kebir and had slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
There was nothing left to "balance" with...
"In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good." Sun Tzu, The Art of War
That's just how it goes if the eternal "balancing" games on the continent by the alpha go south. Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe/the world herself.
An entirely and easily avoidable WW1, lead to a (sadly) unavoidable WW2 which although it was declared wisely, was implemented disastrously...
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Ah, poor Patricia...thinking one can "delete" reality.
Reality?
The 12 million Germans which were expelled from Eastern Europe, and whose misery you are gloating about, actually protected the British Empire.
By removing them, London no longer had the leverage to enforce treaties, or protect own interests.
Really as simple as that...
The big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...wind, wind, whirlwind, hurricane, game over...
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Don't for a minute think European citizens don't know the game being played.
At least not those who know history.
In the late-19th Century, France fought back against the German attempts to isolate it politically, by cordoning off Germany and the Central Powers with a ring of alliance partners.
France, in the west, a hostile Russia (as the "dissed girlfriend") in the east.
GB's RN in the position to cut off the north, in case of war. That only left a small corridor of access either through Serbia, or Austria-Hungary's ports in the Adriatic (threatened by British hegemony over Greece).
Today, we see a similar strategy concerning China.
Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines controlling sea access to the east. Trump playing it nice with Putin/Russia [yup, "collusion" in some form or other is real. Geopolitics almost dictates it to be true], would cut off the north-west/north-east. A more hostile India, will cover the south-west sector...almost there.
That only leaves a narrow corridor of access to the south, in the South China Sea. The Sprattly Islands...
History might not always be 100% the same, but it certainly rhymes.
And Putin?
Let's see if he agrees to Russia's role.
Let's see what price the USA has to pay...
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@synthsun7662 *If you wish to know who the biggest "buck catchers" of history were, then please go to the comments section under the "His--tory Ro..om " educational channel on "Wilhelm II" (documentary).
Great Britain and France did not "win" from the "divide and rule/conquer" system they had set up in Europe, and the British Empire did not gain by the own London policy standpoint of making the strongest continental power their "default rival/enemy" system.
Britons (average citizens) lost BIG TIME.
Of course, no superficially observed series of events can be concluded to be a non-falsifiable theory, if there is not a substantial amount of evidence to corroborate it, and if you wish, that video cmments section has more than 100 essays going back more than 4 years, to provide more than ample evidence for the theory of how Europeans were 1) once "divided and ruled" over (after around 1900), and 2) are still being divided and ruled over (around the year 2000), by outside powers.
Please go there...or not.
Personally, whether you go there and read the essays there, or don't doesn't matter to me.
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I heard evil government's going to send in the military...
Good.
Maybe they should start beating and torturing random innocent Americans suspected of being naughty, as they have been doing in other places in the world for years, and years...
Good.
Popcorn and chips for the rest of the world.
Chickens coming home to roost....
"Residents of Fallujah called them "the Murderous Maniacs" because of how they treated Iraqis in detention. They were soldiers of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division...
One officer and two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) of the 82nd Airborne who witnessed abuse, speaking on condition of anonymity, described in multiple interviews with Human Rights Watch howtheir battalion in 2003-2004 routinely used physical and mental torture as a means of intelligence gathering....
According to their accounts, the torture and other mistreatment of Iraqis....
Military Intelligence personnel, they said, directed and encouraged army personnel to subject prisoners to forced, repetitive exercise, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness...
At least one interrogator beat detainees in front of other soldiers.
Soldiers also incorporated daily beatings of detainees in preparation for interrogations."
[hrw.org]
But, of course, only "bad people" will get targeted.
If history teaches us one thing, it is "beware of what you wish for..."
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Ah, poor Patricia...thinking one can "delete" reality.
Reality?
The 12 millions Germans expelled from Eastern Europe, and whose misery you are gloating about, actually protected the British Empire.
By removing them, London no longer had the leverage to enforce treaties, or protect own interests.
Really as simple as that...
The big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...wind, wind, whirlwind, hurricane, game over...
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@nuqwestr True, that "systemic" part.
But a law doesn't "cure" a racist, same as a speed restriction doesn't stop somebody from driving too fast.
So, the racists simply had to find other ways of keeping "others" on the "other side of the tracks".
No, I have no convictions.
But I don't hold it against anybody, especially not if the laws under which such convictions once took place were dumb or had an evil ulterior motive.
You do know that if convicted, "fellons" couldn't vote, right?
Guess who got disproportionately policed, searched, rounded up, convicted?
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@markmd9 False equivallence...
It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics.
The real question that should be asked, and therefore the premise of any debate is: Was it wise at the time?
To which the simple answer is "no".
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/grand strategy, and lost their Empire....
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@vrsekodkofoly Here is the situation, from a neutral analysis:
The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal: a few grams of weed...
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, patrolled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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"Total war" as a matter of policy was planned by London long before WW1.
The same people who criticized German war planning of invading neutrals apparently had no scruples themselves planning wars on civilians, thinly veiled by using euphemisms...
"Indeed, Britain’s [pre-1914] plan for economic warfare may well have been the first attempt in history to seek victory by deliberately targeting the enemy’s society (through the economy) rather than the state. To be more precise, the target was the systems supporting the society’s lifestyle rather than the society itself. This was a novel approach to waging war."
From
Brits-Krieg: The Strategy of Economic Warfare
NICHOLAS LAMBERT
Note than unlike previous wars in which civilians had always become victims as "by products" of war (not specific policies), this was different.
The civilians were the enemy, and soldiers become ancillary.
Or as one author put it: GB intended "fighting" by letting her "allies" bleed.
Such people deserve neither an Empire, nor the rule of the world, or to be in a position to dominate European affairs.
Bible says the righteous shall inherit the Earth.
Last time I checked, it wasn't the British Empire.
Apparently, the British Empire didn't qualify.
Apparently, not "righteous enough".
Rule Britannia is gone. Superseded by The American Century...
Pax Britannica. Repealed and replaced by Pax Americana...
The eternal Anglo, cut down by Washington DC...
So first off, good riddance...
You live by Machiavelli, you go down the Machiavellian way...
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"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics.
The real question that should be asked, and therefore the premise of any debate is: Was it wise at the time?
To which the simple answer is "no".
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south. Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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Correct. End the War on Drugs.
The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal: minor offences like being caught with a few grams of weed...
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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But it "paid off" only for one.
The British Empire's "best fwiends" over on the other side of the Atlantic, far far away from the action, in no danger whatsoever. The American Century.
Because it's "rule the world" for those who walk the corridors of power, and fairy tales of the "Big Three" and cute "Uncle Joe" for those who don't understand how the world works...
Ever wonder why the "best friends" over in the New World didn't sail in like heroes to help GB out in 1939 or 1940?
Because during WW2 the concept of "a Big Three" was a joke, because the "big three" were not only allies, but also rivals.
Each wanting to be on top once the war was over...
At the turn of the century, nothing symbolized power and rule like the big gun battleships, and by 1945 nothing symbolized power and rule like the mushroom cloud of a nuke...
But while at the end of WW1 the powers got together and divided and negotiated who would get what share of the "symbol of power (Washington Naval Treaty, 1922), at the end of WW2, there would be no such negotiations.
Strange...
The USA said to the rest of the world, including the so-called best friends: "You shall not have nuclear weapons!
[www(dot)atomicheritage(dot)org/history/british-nuclear-program]
Read up all about that little episode...
Strange, how "best friend forever" would let the financially drained GB spend 5 years and millions of Pounds on developing a weapon for themselves which was already completed in development...and just had to be handed over to "a friend"...
Strange also, that during WW2 GB merrily gave their "special friend" all the best war-winning secrets (Tizzard Committee, and all that), but when it became time for the "new best friend" to return the favor, and give the secret of nuclear arms back to GB whose scientists had helped develop nukes in the USA, the answer was "no, it's mine".
So the American Century got nukes, paid for by British cash, cash, cash...
Washington DC/The American Century: "Gee thanks GB. You not only graciously financed the development of our nukes, saving us around 2 billion dollars, you also gave us your scientists to help the US develop them. Thanks "best fwiends" :-)"
That is some weird "special relationship" if you ask me.
A "friend" who does not even want you to have nukes, if he has some himself?
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@patriciabrenner9216 "As bombardier, Zinn dropped napalm bombs in April 1945 on Royan, a seaside resort in western France.
On the ground, Zinn learned that the aerial bombing attacks in which he participated had killed more than a thousand French civilians as well as some German soldiers hiding near Royan to await the war's ed, events that are described "in all accounts" he found as "une tragique erreur" that leveled a small but ancient city and "its population that was, at least officially, friend, not foe." In The Politics of History, Zinn described how the bombing was ordered—three weeks before the war in Europe ended—by military officials who were, in part, motivated more by the desire for their own career advancement than in legitimate military objectives."
Copied from the Film Archives Channel (YouTube)
After World War II, Zinn attended New York University on the GI Bill, graduating with a B.A. in 1951. At Columbia University, he earned an M.A. (1952) and a Ph.D. in history with a minor in political science (1958).
Apparrently roasting your French ancestors was "sweet retribution"....
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The price for a "flattened Germany" would be paid after WW2.
Of course, Germany as a power, benefited the British Empire.
Empire's "fwiends"?
Of course, they had their own agendas.
Washington DC followed the principle of "America first", even if not propagating this aloud...
[Google: The American_Century]
If London or Paris thought there'd be "another Versailles" after WW2, with the British and French empires "drawing lines on the map" and "carving up people/territory/powers" to protect their own interests, they were to be disappointed...
[britannica(dot)com/topic/balance-of-power]
The attempt by Churchill to use the USA to throw Stalin out of Eastern Europe, and remain "the balancer" of power, too transparent.
[Google: Operation_Unthinkable 1944]
There would be no US support to start Unthinkable.
The "poor Poles have to be liberated"-argument, wasn't swinging...
After being dragged into another European (World) War, Washington decided to become the "balancer of powers" herself, and Europe was divided in "East" and "West"...
Stalin quickly and instinctively figured out that Washington DC wouldn't sacrifice US soldiers just so that London could have a few "percentages" of influence in Central Europe...
[Google: Percentages_agreement Churchill and Stalin]
Stalin: "I'll tear this up this scrap of paper now. Here's Greece. I'll take the rest, including your friends Poland 100%. What are you going to do about it?"
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British and French leaders went to Versailles under the rather childish illusion that the SU and Germany would stay weak forever and ever and ever....
They ignored the big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, pissed off by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
[Google: britannica.com/topic/balance-of-power]
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
Sad.
So sad...
"Justifiable" is a bs premise for any debate concerning war.
What really counts is smart leadership, and Brits sucked at geopolitics/geostratey, and lost their Empire....
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Din Djarin The big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
[Google: britannica.com/topic/balance-of-power]
The British Empire was actually protected by a strong Central Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying any European country was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, and so dissed by Mers el Kebir that they slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
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@Seamus O'Flatcap Too bad British leaders sucked at geopolitics...
Yes, also a fitting end for "Empire" by "switching the lights off" (see quotes by Grey)
So, for the first time in 20 years "the lights in Europe would go out", and Europeans would not see them go on again...ever.
They would flicker again 1919, to 1939, and then go out again.
With that, they had sacrificed their position of rulers of the world, and others would take over...
Because, the type of rule or economy plays little role in the outcome of whether one "rules the world" or not.
Geography plays a far bigger role.
So at the turn of century London "ruled the world" because geography isolated them from the continent and their island status gave them the upper hand at a time when war was still the common way to determine "top dog" or not....
When development of weapons produced ever further reaching weapons of war, GB's island status did not offer the same measure of protection anymore...so they went down.
The weapons of 1900 couldn't harm the British Empire, but the weapons of 1945 could....
In that era around WW2, it was the USA which was (as the sole power) isolated from this "great game", and benefited as the result of its geographical isolation, and because there was that "one ring which ruled them all"...lol, but in a good way of course.
And it wasn't only the forces of evil who wanted to "rule the world", but also people who thought they had a God-given right to do so...
[Google: American_Century]
...and who thought they were better than everybody else...
[Google: American_exceptionalism]
And down went Empire too...
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@Stephen Hall A little lesson in geopolitics:
Poor British Empire, thinking that a faraway empire (USA) would ensure their future. Leaders and people who for a large part didn't care about the British Empire.
In fact, the "new rich" many Europeans looked down onto, which had grown economically way above its previous colonial masters, simply didn't like the idea of colonies...
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
[Google: American_Century]
Sorry 'bout that.
Causality is a b*tch...
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@lashlarue7924 It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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@cryovizard9461 No, you should have common sense that stops capitalism from turning into corporatism, with all the accompanying negative effects (cronyism, plutocracy, corruption, mercantilism, globalism, cartels, etc., etc., etc.)
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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"When two neighbouring countries fight each other, just know the USA visited one." - Nelson Mandela (Region: Southern Africa/Big picture timestamp: Cold War).
The statement is not quite correct.
When two neighbours fight each other, just know that an empire has been there previously.
It's the old joke that "If two fish are fighting, the British Empire has been there."
It is a truism about imperialism in general, and how divide-and-rule works.
Set up neighbours against each other, using a variety of ever-consistent techniques and strategies. With absolute certainty, the tribal leaders of Europe joked the same way about the Roman Empire, openly flaunting their "Pax Romana" whilst in the background covertly favoring one "neighbor", whilst setting them up against the others, using whatever reasoning it wanted.
Outsiders will come to a state (also covertly politically or via NGOs as the strategy of "cultural- and political capture"), and these outsiders try to lay down the foundation for division by setting up the "new-found friend" against its neighbours and if it is unsuccessful in one "state" (status quo), it will simply go to the neighbours and try the same. The more neighbours, the more chances of a successful division of powers, which is beneficial to the "divider". Because if these neighbours all end up fighting, the "divider" vacuums off gains (of various kinds) in the background. Such implemented and leveraged divisions do not necessarily stem from evil intent, since most of the participants in a divide-and-rule strategy have absolutely no idea that they have become "actors" in a great game, the scope of which they remain ignorant of. Even those with good intentions (political doves) can create division.
No amount of agreements, accords, negotiation or skills will ever stop the "dividers", for nothing they sign will stop their divisive ways.
Any resources-rich region of the planet like the Ukraine or West Asia, where the interests run deep, is a perfect example of the above, which is globally practiced today. The only thing which changed between the Roman Empire and the current times is technology, which vastly shrunk the world and the REACH of the controlling empire.
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Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickegruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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Do you wish to contribute a small share to force Israel into a negotiated peace process?
Are you American, or European? Do you wish to bring the boys back home, from the multitude of military bases around the world, just like so many of your fellow citizens?
Just remember this:
- You are not going to achieve it by voting in elections.
- You are not going to achieve it by posting on social media.
- You are not going to achieve it by debating on any plattform, real or virtual.
- You are not going to achieve it by making use your "freedom of speech" in any way.
- You are not going to achieve it by protesting in any possible way which will politically make a difference.
Here is what you can do, easily:
1) Read Smedley-Butler/War is a Racket, a very short book (should be possible in a few hours)
2) realize that after around a 100 years, NOTHING has changed
3) start unravelling the connections between big business and Washington DC, by boycotting "big brands".
Boycott: Much simpler than trying to remember the long loooong lists of what not to buy, and for whatever specific reasons, is to try and limit what one actually does buy: buy no-name brands, buy local foods (farmers markets), buy locally produced or handmade items, otherwise buy fair trade wherever possible.
It is not perfect, but don't get sidelined by the whiners/finger pointers who will invariably ALWAYS show up like clockwork, trying to ridicule or nag with their dumb "...duh but your using a smartphone, but your using oil toooo"-gotcha style distractions.
It is not MEANT to be "perfect"...
Methodology: JDI and make it a longterm lifestyle, not a short-term knee-jerk "trend," because of some or other upsetting event in the news. Just boycott ALL corporations, as far as personally convenient and possible, and always remember that even if only 75% of all the people on the planet only get it right about 75% of the time, on roughly 75% of everything they buy, it will finally make a massive difference for all the causes you also value. Want to bring the boys home? Do you wish to limit military actions to becoming multinational, following the principles of international law only, and independent of any corporate "interests." Do you wish to contribute to end western imperialist actions and meddling all over the world? You wish to contribute a small share to forcing Israel into a negotiated peace process? Do you wish to give small companies a better chance in the dog-eat-dog capitalist world in your country?
Join BDS, because the international cross-border politically influencial rich and powerfull only REALLY start caring when their pockets start hurting. 👍👋
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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"Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment.[1] The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking,[2] and accordingly, a critical thinker is one who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been schooled in its disciplines.[3] Richard W. Paul has suggested that the mind of a critical thinker engages both the intellectual abilities and personal traits necessary for critical thinking.[4] Critical thinking presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism[5][6] and sociocentrism." (Wiki)
"In that context (not a ref. to the above but a previous chapter in the book), how America "manages" Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 percent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about 60 percent of the world's GNP and about threefourths of the world's known energy resources. Eurasia is also the location of most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. After the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest spenders on military weaponry are located in Eurasia. All but one of the world's overt nuclear powers and all but one of the covert ones are located in Eurasia. The world's two most populous aspirants to regional hegemony and global influence are Eurasian. All of the potential political and/or economic challengers to American primacy are Eurasian. Cumulatively, Eurasia's power vastly overshadows America's. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one..." THE GRAND CHESSBOARD American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Critical question.
If that is the realisation, then what is the strategy to avoid that?
Ahem..."manages"...
Last time I checked, "thoughts and prayers" are neither a strategy, nor a management style.
What Brzezinski fails to elaborate on in his book, is that his "periphery" of states stretching from South East Asia, via the Indian subcontinent, through Africa and from there to South America, just like Great Britain and the U.S.A. was once the "periphery" of Europe...
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@MerryXmasMfkrs It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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@Matthew_Loutner The strategy you guys are looking for is find the junior partner.
Another example of this strategy was WW2.
During the era Imperialism, London never addressed its own collective attitude problem, which was that it wanted "junior partners" on the continent which would implement the aims and goals of Empire indirectly, and that all that was needed to ensure this was the strongest navy in the world ("Two Power Standard"). Lords with veto powers went around looking for "friends" and these "friends" were given the feeling of being equals. "Feelings" means nothing though.
Interesting in this respect were British intentions to find such perceived "equals/friends" in Sweden/Norway in 1939/40. The strategists here in Scandinavia were smarter, and knew exactly what their "function" was to "empires" (strategies). They therefore tactfully declined British advances in regards to "just passing through to help Finland", recognizing that "ending like Poland" was not a desirable potential future. These strategists knew what they were talking about, and the habit "empires" had of finding gullible "lightning rods" and "soft underbellies" for their own aims and goals, often leaving the chosen "best fwiend" in a state of total ruin. A little known detail tucked away in the folds of a few history books regarding how the world really works, drowned out the 99% of ancillary details...
Norway/Sweden 1939/1940 = Ukraine 2008 - 2022
The Ukraine today, is already "ending like Poland".
Little friends who will be encouraged and supported to fight to the last man.
Empire and her little helpers: "Can you bring me some more popcorn and chips, dear...great show, great show..."
Taiwan: ...
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Correct. End the War on Drugs.
The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal: minor offences like being caught with a few grams of weed...
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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ASIANS BEWARE:
Robert Blackwell (2015 quote from an article): "...since its founding the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals first on the North American continent then in the Western Hemisphere and finally globally..."
Asians beware: The ex-Imperialists powers' of the "oh-so-superior West" are using divide and rule strategies over Asian nations, trying to set your nations up against each other so these outside systems can "surf in and skim off the profits of division". It is as alive and well as during the Age of Imperialism, and they are using exactly the same techniques of "dividing Asians" as they used 200 and 300 years ago.
WARN EACH OTHER REGARDLESS OF YOUR OWN EMOTIONS OR PERSONAL PRIORITIES
Most European people are far too daft or preoccupied to understand how their own leaders scheme and deceive them too, so do not expect any help from westerners. Most are so obsessed with their own so-called "superiority", that they end up thinking everything they do is justified, with "only a few exceptions" in order to seem fair...
Has your nation, or a leader already been "chosen as a favorite son of the West"?
Then you have already subscribed to the divide and rule scheme, of outside powers...
Set whatever differences you might have with neighbors aside, or settle them fast peacefully, and don't think you can personally gain from co-operating in such a "divide and rule/conquer"-scheme. Actively set out to start warning ALL Asian peoples across all borders.
Don't expect anybody in the so-called "superior West" to warn you.
YOU personally have the POWER, via social media, to spread this message.
Do YOU have an account? Then start spreading this message.
Just do it, before it is too late.
You must REALIZE yourself, and actively become engaged in your own defence, and this is regardless of where you live in Asia.
YOUR own defence, is across the often artificial borders these Imperialists imposed on Asia, hundreds of years ago, and your emotions are still a "slave" of decisions made by these Western "overlords" hundreds of years ago.
Divide and rule will sacrifice YOU today, for the gain of the outside Western Powers, just like divide and rule sacrificed your grandparents and previous Asian generations during the Era of Imperialism...
------------------------
P.S.: I cannot personally post this message myself too often, since YT autoblocks it as "spam" if I copy and paste it under videos too often. I need YOUR help. In your own interest of safety, please spread this message with regards to the age-old "divide and rule"-strategy of outside (non-Asian) powers. Thank You.
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The violence was initiated by the state, a long time ago, in a "War on Drugs"-policy.
A "divide and rule"-tool to get citizens divided, so the tip of the pyramid scheme can skim the cream off the top and get richer and richer...
These kind of "divide and rule"-schemes are being set up all over the world, but nowhere is it more prolific/clear/visible than in the USA.
Demoncrats/Repugnicons? All the same cabal...
They go to the same parties.
The only difference is the people whose votes they are trying to buy...
The War on Drugs means that "certain people" are disproportionately controlled, rounded up, sentenced, charged and locked up for what you consider normal.
It also means that "certain neighborhoods" are disproportionately policed, invaded, controlled, and imposed upon by your state/local government/authorities.
It's time to end the dumb laws that leads to this situation.
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@STRONG-JUSTICE For Israel, the so-called "2-state solution" was always a farce and a political technique to "drag feet eternally" whilst wrongs persist in the background. Yes, what you explain is "kicking the can down the road" (strategy), let the wrongs continue, while behind closed doors the promise to the own people and Knesset was that the neighbors were going to be kept down, or under the boot (Rabin stated clearly in the 1990s that for Israel, Palestine was going to be, as direct quote "less than a state"), and all subsequent Israeli admins followed this "standard" which is in effect the "Bantustan," the "cheap pool of labor," or aka "apartheid."
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@antondelacruz9362 Well...actually there is. There still is slavery everywhere in the world. Not "officially" or "sanctioned" by society, but hidden in the form of "trafficking", often aided by corruption by the very people who are soposed to implement laws to protect victims.
Laws are simply there to be benefitted from by these "bad apples" of the system. Often, the "good apples" do nothing, because of loyalty, comradery, "best friends" who need support, etc. Human failures allow "illegal slavery" to persist, and often the system themselves do too little to stop it.
"Good" or "bad" is often subjective. The Bible says for a good reasoin "not to judge". Do not judge others (unless of course in serious cases of exploitation or oprression), and especially not to "stomp around" in self-satisfied "own back patting"-mode, secure in own moral superiory.
Again, the Bible states to be humble, and work on own failures (the "splinters in own eyes").
No, China will not become "good" if the USA should collapse for some reason.
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@Jameson-d8x It might have been wise to "balance powers" in a concert of equals" (see Concert of Europe) at a time when wars were limited in scope in the first half of the 19th Century.
During the era of mass-armies of millions of men that came with the population explosion late-19th Century, it was in fact the opposite.
It was not wise to try to play "balancing games", because (to quote Churchill "wars would end in the ruin of the vanquished and the dislocation of the winners").
And that is what happened.
At a time of changes taking place (technology shrinking the world), incorporating the USA into the "balance of power" is where London failed.
The American Century fanboys in Washington DC had no intention to become a part of London's idea of "balance of power".
Back then, London's policy was foolish.
It pitted itself against the most powerful continental power/alliance, meaning that if it came to war others would benefit by sitting on the fence to pick up the pieces in case it came to war.
In case Washington (today) wishes to play the same foolish game with China, the same will happen. Not that there will be a war (hopefully not), but if there is a lasting trade war, both will lose, and those "sitting on the fence" will gain: Russia, India, and the EU (in case they can manage to stick together).
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Just imagine: A few signatures under a timely comprehensive European security agreement at the turn of the previous century (around 1900) would have avoided WW1 (and by association also WW2).
A few signatures under a timely comprehensive European security agreement which also incl. Russia, at the turn of this century (around the year 2000) would have avoided the current war in the Ukraine (and by association all which will follow in the future).
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
— Henry Kissinger
The beauty of "history", is that the "control freaks" of history tell you exactly what they aim to do.
Kissinger's quote is of course not restricted to modern times only, when he stated it.
It is one of those age-old truisms, most well-known to the history fan as the "siege" of towns and fortresses throughout ancient history, or as the "naval blockade" (military strategy) as technology improved, or in modern times the "political/economic sanctions" (politics). All with a host of variations as our world became more and more complex.
The aim is to coerce and to extort.
To blackmail and to armwrestle an advantage from the elevated position of the "higher ground" onto others, with or without negotiations, or needing to make concessions, or simply impose "jackboot"-style.
But in nature and physics, every "force" results in an equal and opposite reaction force (Newton/Third Law).
Wiki "In international relations, the security dilemma (also referred to as the spiral model) is when the increase in one state's security (such as increasing its military strength) leads other states to fear for their own security (because they do not know if the security-increasing state intends to use its growing military for offensive purposes).[1] Consequently, security-increasing measures can lead to tensions, escalation or conflict with one or more other parties, producing an outcome which no party truly desires; a political instance of the prisoner's dilemma.[2][1][3][4][5]
The security dilemma is particularly intense in situations when (1) it is hard to distinguish offensive weapons from defensive weapons, and (2) offense has the advantage in any conflict over defense.[1] Military technology and geography strongly affect the offense-defense balance.[1] The term was first coined by the German scholar John H. Herz in a 1950 study.[6] At the same time British historian Herbert Butterfield described the same situation in his History and Human Relations, but referred to it as the "absolute predicament and irreducible dilemma".[7] The security dilemma is a key concept in international relations theory, in particular among realist scholars to explain how security-seeking states can end up in conflict.[5]"
(end of quote)
Of course, something being the topic of a historical analysis, or termed/defined at a later date, does not mean it did not exist at a previous stage in history.
It existed as a concept, often under different names, or even in the form of mythology if you lived in ancient Persia or Greece, and it existed if you lived in GB at the turn of the previous century, looking at "Wilhelm building ships".
Such "tit-for-tat"-logic has always existed in the dog-eat-dog world of "empires", alliances and states. It became prevalent only after the age of print, widespread democracy and the resulting diluted power shared amongst more and more entities. All of which would need to convince more and more people, becoming the norm (say, for the sake of argument) during the 19th Century.
Just imagine: A few signatures under a timely comprehensive European security agreement at the turn of the previous century ("around 1900") would have avoided WW1 (and by association also WW2).
A few signatures under a timely comprehensive European security agreement which also incl. Russia, at the turn of this century ("around the year 2000") would have avoided the current war in the Ukraine (and by association all which will follow in the future).
Aww well...too late for all that now.
In both cases, the "few signatures" would have avoided endless hardships.
Who benefited, if the world of "no signatures" prevailed?
The idiomatic expression about frantically rushing about trying to "close the gate after the horse bolted" was literally invented for European politics.
Basically everything they do is "too little too late".
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@whatwhat3432523 It is Israel which denies the Palestinians the right to exist as an equal.
They chant, "Palestine was never a state..." because Israel never intended for Palestians to ever live in full sovereignty.
Netanyahu, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, “We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ... We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, [aka/edit: the "Apartheid dependency, of a Bantustan"] and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”
“Jerusalem,” Rabin said in his speech, would be “united as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty,” and “will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev”.
“We came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”
Even at this point in the 1990s, the last real chance of peace, Israel wanted Arafat to "sign away" millions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and some areas in the West Bank, to fall under Israeli control.
What that would have meant, we see today.
Settler colonists, protected by the guns of the IDF, have been using this concept of the "Bantustan" to raid and occupy one house at a time, making the original inhabitants homeless in their own city...
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@bolivar2153 The advocacy for "total war", more "total" than one can imagine, counts for all...
The intended complete destruction of Germany as a "power", and removal of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe turned out to be a massive "shot in the own foot" for the West.
The 12 million Germans which were expelled from Eastern Europe, actually protected the West, and by extension, also the British Empire.
By their acquiescence to removing them as a "sphere of influence", London no longer had the leverage to enforce treaties, or protect own interests.
Really as simple as that...
The big picture...
And of all the "big pictures", this is the biggest of all...
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying Germany was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, still angry about Mers el Kebir and had slipped under Washington's wings...
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
There was nothing left to "balance" with...
"In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good." Sun Tzu, The Art of War
That's just how it goes if the eternal "balancing" games on the continent by the alpha go south. Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe/the world herself.
An entirely and easily avoidable WW1, lead to a (sadly) unavoidable WW2 which although it was declared wisely, was implemented disastrously...
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